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Yeah, my tea has water-cooling (startrek.website)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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Would this even work? Lol

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[–] 13 points 3 years ago* (4 children)
  1. Use a metal straw to improve heat conduction.

While metal is a better conductor of heat, when looking at the effective rate of cooling you need to take the wall thickness into account. I think a plastic straw with it's micrometer thin walls is unbeatable.

Edit: I have trouble finding information on wall thickness of drinking straws, it one source says they are 130-250 μm thick. That is thicker than I expected.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Counterpoint: drink a cold drink through a plastic straw and a metal straw, with your fingers on the straw. See which one feels cooler.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Leave a block of wood and a brick of steel in a freezer for 24 hours and see which one feels cooler - they’ll be the same actual temperature (at least negligibly close the longer they’re left) but the metal will feel immensely cooler to the touch due to its higher capacity for heat transference.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    There are two compounding factors

    • heat capacity: any short term experiment will measure heat capacity first, conduction second

    • locality of contact: contact along the whole length of the straw eliminates heat conduction along the length of the straw. A single point of contact (holding the straw with fingers instead of the whole hand) behaves differently.

    I thought plastic straws were thinner than 0.2 mm, so maybe the metal is actually better.

    It's fun arguing about these technicalities though!

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